Carolina BBQ Jackfruit Pulled “Pork” Wraps with Pickled Red Onions

Rob likes to have dinner themes for his birthday parties. Last year, it was Japanese.

We had planned on going Ethiopian this year, as it is the theme of our current neighbourhood. However, we changed our minds at the last minute because I wasn’t in the mood to cook up 5 different cooked dishes.

While I can dream up menus for days on end, they involve vegan dishes. Rob knew that some of our guests might balk at the lack of meat, so he offered to make a Southwestern Pulled Brisket in the slow cooker. With his meal chosen, I crafted the remainder of the menu with it in mind.

Therefore, this year it was a hodge podge of Southern US and Mexican dishes, foreshadowing our next, next move to Texas in 2013. My (not so) discerning palate can’t tell the difference between Texan and Carolina BBQ styles, but I can tell you how delicious everything turned out.

I was initially hesitant, but Rob encouraged me to try my hand at jackfruit carnitas. We had all the fixings for great tacos for the brisket, so why not have another filling, too?

Jackfruit is a fruit from Southeast Asia. Rob tells me it tastes like bubble gum. While the ripe fruit is sweet, you can buy canned young jackfruit in brine, which is quite flavourless. It has been used as a meat substitute due to its texture. After being cooked, it pulls apart into stringy bits akin to pulled pork and beef brisket.

While Rob’s brisket took 8 hours in the slow cooker, my BBQ jackfruit pulled “pork” took an hour, tops.

They key of the recipe is the spice blend, and here we used a plethora of spices to capture a Southern BBQ flavour: sweet smoked paprika, Aleppo chili flakes, mustard, tomato and red pepper pastes, tamarind and vinegar for some tang and sweetness from the maple syrup (yes, that’s 4/8 of my favourite ingredients in one sauce!). Such a glorious BBQ flavour with a bit of a kick. Chile heads, again, feel free to use the suggested cayenne, but I though it was plenty spicy without it. Dry frying brought out the flavours from the dry spices, then a slow simmer expanded the saucy flavours. Baking it firmed up the jackfruit so that it was more akin to pork.

As the jackfruit bakes, or if you are more inclined to make the brisket (it had rave, rave reviews, btw, and Rob loved its sheer simplicity to prepare), make some pickled red onions. I know many people shun fresh red onions, and a quick marinade in vinegar with some salt and sugar can really bring out their flavour. We used the recipe suggested by Deb.

Both the brisket and BBQ jackfruit pulled pork was served with an assortment of toppings – shredded Romaine, chopped tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts, sliced cabbage, avocado and the pickled red onions. While we had roti and pitas for guests, I opted to make wraps with Romaine lettuce leaves. The jackfruit was so flavourful that you didn’t need so much per wrap. While Rob’s 3 lbs of beef brisket easily fed 10 people, my 20 oz of jackfruit served more like 2-4 people, depending on how many toppings you added.

5. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add spiced jackfruit. Heat until the spices are toasted and fragrant, around 5 minutes. Do not burn. Scrape any stuck on bits.

6. Meanwhile, in a small cup, mix together the tomato paste, red pepper paste, vinegar, oil, tamarind concentrate, water and maple syrup. Stir until well mixed. Add to jackfruit and deglaze the pan.

7. Once the onions are caramelized, add to the wet jackfruit mixture. Simmer jackfruit in its sauce for 15-30 minutes, until softened. Use a fork to shred the jackfruit into stringy bits.

8. You could stop here, but if you want a firmer consistency more similar to pork, spread hte mixture evenly on a silpat-lined cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes until slightly dried out.

9. Serve on a sandwich or as a taco with lots of fixins. I served mine on a large leaf of Romaine lettuce, topped with shredded cabbage, chopped tomatoes, sliced avocado, alfalfa sprouts and pickled red onions (see below for recipe).

1. In a small bowl, vinegars with 1/2 cup of cold tap water. Stir in salt, the sugar and the hot sauce. Add the sliced onions and let sit for at least one hour. This can be made in advance and taste better after a longer marinade.

Wow, I’ve never heard of jackfruit as a meat substitute, but it looks just like meat – I was actually confused when I opened your post and first scrolled through the pictures without reading! I always want to like pulled pork because it looks so good covered in sauce, but I’ve only tried it once and thought it was disgusting (probably because I hate pork) – I’ll have to try this version, thanks!

Like everybody else, I have to try this. It looks so good. But jackfruit is so weird, and so nauseating in its fresh form. But maybe it’s like cashews, poison when raw, ambrosial when cooked just a little. Yours certainly falls into the “ambrosial” category, image-wise!

Yeah, they had some fresh jackfruit this week at the grocery store and Rob told me it tastes like it smells… it wasn’t particularly appetizing, to tell you the truth. We didn’t buy any. He tells me when he had it fresh in ?Samoa it was very nice but who knows about these imports. 😛 The young jackfruit doesn’t really taste like much, to be honest.. it is all about the sauce. 🙂

I tried fresh jackfruit in India and I loved it….then I tried some frozen jackfruit from an Asian market here and the smell was definitely hard to get over! But I still liked the taste! I never would have thought to use it in a savory BBQ recipe – this is so creative!

Would you believe I’ve had a can of jackfruit in my cupboard for almost a year, and I could never figure out which recipe to try with it? I have found my jackfruit nirvana!! I am going to make this. Can’t wait. Thanks so much for submitting to WW this week! 🙂

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